Excel BI - Excel Challenge 847

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🔰 Sort the overall data - Extract the numbers from data, sum them and then sort the data on the basis of this sum.

Published

March 24, 2026

Illustration for Excel BI - Excel Challenge 847

Challenge Description

🔰 Sort the overall data - Extract the numbers from data, sum them and then sort the data on the basis of this sum.

Solutions

library(tidyverse)
library(readxl)

path = "Excel/800-899/847/847 Sorting.xlsx"
input = read_excel(path, range = "A1:A10")
test  = read_excel(path, range = "B1:B10")

sort_within_cell = function(s) {
  str_extract_all(s, "[A-Z]\\d+")[[1]] %>%
    enframe() %>%
    separate(value, into = c("char", "num"), sep = 1, convert = TRUE) %>%
    arrange(num) %>%
    mutate(paired = str_c(char, num)) %>%
    pull(paired) %>%
    str_c(collapse = "")
}

input_processed = input %>%
  mutate(
    sorted_within = map_chr(Data, sort_within_cell),
    sum_weight = map_dbl(sorted_within, ~ str_extract_all(., "\\d+")[[1]] %>% 
                         as.numeric() %>% sum())) %>%
    arrange(sum_weight)

all.equal(input_processed$sorted_within,test$`Answer Expected`)
# [1] TRUE

Logic: Read the workbook ranges needed for the challenge; Derive the required intermediate columns; Parse the packed text or string structure.
Strengths: The solution stays close to the text pattern itself, which makes the extraction logic easy to audit.
Areas for Improvement: The solution assumes the workbook layout and selected ranges remain stable, so any structural change in the sheet would require small adjustments.
Gem: A small number of well-targeted text patterns does most of the heavy lifting.

import pandas as pd
import re

path = "Excel/800-899/847/847 Sorting.xlsx"
input = pd.read_excel(path, usecols="A", nrows=10)
test = pd.read_excel(path, usecols="B", nrows=10)

result  = (input.assign(
    sorted_codes=input['Data'].apply(lambda s: ''.join(sorted(re.findall(r'[A-Z]\d+', s), key=lambda x: int(x[1:])))),
    sum_weight=input['Data'].apply(lambda s: sum(map(int, re.findall(r'\d+', s))))
).sort_values(['sum_weight','Data']))

print(result['sorted_codes'].tolist()) 
print(test['Answer Expected'].tolist())
# one difference in order where full weight is same

The Python version expresses the core extraction rule directly and keeps the pattern matching easy to review.

Difficulty Level

Medium

The individual steps are manageable, but the correct transformation pattern is not obvious from the raw data.